Dog Shock Collar

[Mr. Clean]

Bought a shock collar for the dog, well to be completely honest the wife did but anyways. I ended up testing it on myself first. Figured, if I'm going to be zapping this dog, I'd better know what kind of power I have with the touch of a button.

The low setting wasn't really too awful. By all means, I wouldn't want someone zapping me all day with it but it was still tolerable. :bored:

The high setting was pretty crazy on the other hand. :eek:

I can't even begin to imagine what a tazer meant for a human is like. :dead:

[JDFP]

"Don't taze me, bro!"

I don't really care for the idea of dog shock collars. Call me nuts (heard it many times before, will again) but I think dogs have souls just like humans. And they definitely feel emotion and pain like we do too. I have a little chihuahua named Wolf and he's my best buddy in the world. He has to live with my mom because I'm not allowed to have any pets at the apartment complex I live in and it'll be awhile before I can get my own house/condo/whatever. Mom's taken him as basically being her own and loves him like I do -- he's my little buddy. He knows when I pull up outside her place in my car (he can tell from the engine or what not, I don't know, but he KNOWS) and becomes ecstatic with excitement when I see him and spend some time with him. Adversely, when I leave he becomes extremely sad and whimpers and cries (and I come damn close to it too, I really miss my Wolf).

I can handle most things in the world -- but the idea of anything hurting Wolf drives me crazy. If I EVER saw anyone mistreating him I'd probably have to restrain myself from killing the person. Other guys who are dog owners and loves dog here like I do understand it when I say that he's like a little child who loves me unconditionally. I can understand training him, but I have to think there's better ways than shocking him. My outlook is that if you wouldn't do the same thing to a toddler you shouldn't do it to a dog either. It goes with my idea of neutering/spaying dogs too -- if someone can't be a responsible enough owner to ensure their dog doesn't get another dog preggers then that person shouldn't own a damn dog in the first place. Cutting a dog's balls off because the owner is too irresponsible to properly watch their pet is almost immoral in my book. I promised Wolf a long time ago I would NEVER let anyone cut his balls off -- and I swear by that.

Speaking of toddlers -- you ever see parents with those leashes on their toddler's arms? "Wrist leashes" or whatever they are called? I think they're obscene and every time I see a parent have one of those things on their kid I want to slap the parent up beside the head. If a parent can't take care of their kid better than treating them like an animal that doesn't follow their instructions -- well, anyway, I digress...

j.p.

[Danny]

shock collars are pretty horrible things, some dogs need more training than others but they aint stupid animals, i taught all the dogs i ever owned to be obedient by being kind but stern, not administering electric shocks. and my familys always had huskies, german sheppards and even a few wolf hounds and sure some take a little more training than others but you are supposed to care for an animal to get them to care for you. a shock collars not a way to form a bond of master and pet, its a way to get a weaker creature to fear you. thats not cool dude.
if you were a dog could you care for an owner who put a shock collar on you?

[blind2d]

Besides being perhaps cruel and unnecessary... It just seems weird. I don't know... if I had a dog, I certainly wouldn't do the shock-collar thing. No matter how disagreeable or aggravating his behavior may be.
And then there's the whole issue of wasting electricity, but that's probably not important enough to warrant any further discussion.
But yeah, I don't think we need 'em. That's just me, of course.

[Debbieangel]

OOOOOH MY GOODNESS, I saw this thread and was chewing it to bits to reply in it.
My husband and I rescued this little boston bull terrier/yorkie mix.
The people that had her before us would put her in this small SMALL little dog carrier 16 hours a day ..plus, they used a stinking shock collar. Well....one day we had to take her collar off(btw:her name is Ginger)
She cowered and whimpered like we were gonna hurt her, oooh my goodness, it tore our hearts out. We held her and cuddled her for a long time and showed her it was her collar we were just gonna put it back on her. (we were putting her dog license/rabies tags on it).
Get this my husband went to work and the lady ask him if we wanted to buy the shock collar off of her. I told my hubby...tell her Ginger is just fine and well behaved without that dang thing. grrrrrrrrr
Ginger is doing really really good, spoiled rotten, she has the run of the house. She has my hubby and I wrapped around her little puppy paw.
I have been a dog owner for a long long time. We have 5 dogs and I pity the day someone ever hurts one of them. They are ALL our babies!
Anyone that has to have a shock collar for their dog shouldn't have dogs!!!

[Danny]

OOOOOH MY GOODNESS, I saw this thread and was chewing it to bits to reply in it.
My husband and I rescued this little boston bull terrier/yorkie mix.
The people that had her before us would put her in this small SMALL little dog carrier 16 hours a day ..plus, they used a stinking shock collar. Well....one day we had to take her collar off(btw:her name is Ginger)
She cowered and whimpered like we were gonna hurt her, oooh my goodness, it tore our hearts out. We held her and cuddled her for a long time and showed her it was her collar we were just gonna put it back on her. (we were putting her dog license/rabies tags on it).
Get this my husband went to work and the lady ask him if we wanted to buy the shock collar off of her. I told my hubby...tell her Ginger is just fine and well behaved without that dang thing. grrrrrrrrr
Ginger is doing really really good, spoiled rotten, she has the run of the house. She has my hubby and I wrapped around her little puppy paw.
I have been a dog owner for a long long time. We have 5 dogs and I pity the day someone ever hurts one of them. They are ALL our babies!
Anyone that has to have a shock collar for their dog shouldn't have dogs!!!

They dont just mess up tiny dogs. My moms boyfriend has the huskie, names deisel, big, hulking proud sunofabitch. much bigger than normal, got hit by a car and the car was totalled and he walked away, im talking a brickshithouse in dog form. then hes given a shock collar because these high pitched 'anti teenager' white noise things in his area make him cry at night.
3 weeks after getting the 'shock treatments' this once proud amazing dog is a quivering wreck. all he does is sit under my moms bed when hes round, shaking and trying to look in every direction at once, move slightly and he wimpers and wraps into an almost fetal position.
Theres a reason the bad guys in flicks set in mental asylums love there electro shock therapy and theres a reason its in ill repute as well. its more than inhumane because you shouldnt shock anything to teach it. something that is made to learn through fear of punishment and pain instead of positive encouragement and reward is going to be messed up regardless of wether there 'tamed' by it.

[SymphonicX]

Dog shock collars?!??!?

I've never heard of this. This is AWFUL.

Why don't you just poke it with a stick instead??!?! Or kick it in the face?

Should be illegal. This invention comes from the same breed of people who remove loud dog's voice boxes - and "declaw" cats, which scars those creatures mentally forever.
I've got so many things to say in offense to this practice. I am truly appalled.

The truth is, if one can't learn to control an animal by using fair but firm guidelines, love, respect and friendship then one doesn't deserve to own an animal whatsoever.

Please, please don't use that effing thing on your dog.

[krakenslayer]

Theres a reason the bad guys in flicks set in mental asylums love there electro shock therapy and theres a reason its in ill repute as well. its more than inhumane because you shouldnt shock anything to teach it.

Actually, Electro-Shock Therapy isn't supposed to shock people to teach them anything, despite how it's used in movies. It's not a "stop it or we'll hurt you" thing. The charge of electricity moving through the body's nervous system actually has a marked calming effect afterwards on individuals with certain neurological and mental disorders. However, nowadays it should only be used with the full permission of the patient and their next of kin, and even then only as an extreme last resort.

Regarding dog shock collars, I guess the reason dogs trained with then become such pathetically paranoid wrecks is that they have no idea where the pain is coming from. Dogs don't understand remote control and electricity and invisible radio waves; when they feel the shock, they will think that something is physically sneaking up on them from behind and hurting them, something so fast that it escapes before they can see it. So they will start spending their time backed into corners, as Hells said, trying to look in every direction at once, becoming compulsively obsessed with catching a small, seemingly omniscient foe that doesn't exist. Basically, if used wrongly, a shock collar is a good way to train your pet to be a paranoid schizophrenic.

EDIT: here's what the Association for Pet Bevaviour has to say about shock collars: www.apbc.org.uk/articles/shockcollars

[Tricky]

Yeah I wouldnt use one of these at all, needlessly cruel.
My two much loved dogs are very well trained, they've needed the odd slap from time to time, mainly as puppies when they would destroy furniture and crap in corners, but that was nothing brutal, they quickly learned and are great animals now, completely soft and safe to be around anyone. The only thing I do have to do is take a little bamboo garden cane with me when I take them both for a walk, my Staffy gets so ridiculously excited at the prospect of a walk that he starts jumping at our Labrador & biting his neck, trying to drag him along, its only through excitement & playfulness, but he does do some damage & causes the lab to yelp, so I've given him a swipe to his backside a couple of times to stop him doing it, and now every time I take them out I only have to raise the cane & he backs off so he's learned quickly not to do it. Although if I take them out without the cane he knows and starts doing it all the more, cheeky sod! I certainly dont agree with cruelty to dogs or any other animal for that matter, so dont take that as I beat them because its far from that. My Staff still loves me to bits and always comes to sit on my knee at every opportunity :D

This is him anyway, fine chap he is!
http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/2595/reggiesnow.png

[SymphonicX]

beautiful dog Tricks... :)

[Mr. Clean]

Well, abuse of anything is abuse. You could yell and scream at a dog all day and it's going to be mentally abused in the end. The low setting on the device isn't near as bad as a newspaper to the nose. Not to mention it comes out of no where(if the dog thinks your not looking) so the dog learns that it's behavior is unacceptable even when your not around. I do agree thou, abusing the device isn't good.

[kortick]

I never really knew much about these things other than when used at
a few kinky sex parties and clubs i been to.
But i had to dog sit for someone and they had these 2 jack russell terriers
named paddy and smackers. and these 2 lil bastards were like terrors from beyond hell.
words cant tell u how these rotten little hyper bastards would do things
that would make me wonder 'what the hell is wrong with them'
I never used the collar on them, but the lady who did used it all the time
and next time i had to watch them i learned, u didnt have to put the collars
on the lil devil bastards, all u had to do is show them the control that admins the zap.
even if the collar wasnt on thier neck, u pick that thing up and show it an
say 'stop it u rotten lil shit' and once they saw that oh boy did they listen.
So the constant use of them is not needed. I never once needed to use it
just holding it in my hand letting them see it was enough to make them stop
destroying whatever they were in the process of ravaging and behave.
I beleive that ppl overuse them. they can be used in a way that wont hurt the
animal, and get them to behave, and believe me these lil bastards would not listen
u needed something.
use them to teach, then stop using them at all. the animal is smart enough to
know when u are serious when u say stop.
continuous zapping of them is not needed and cruel.

[brer]

I can see using them.

For the most part, I see people complaining about them being used on house dogs. I agree with that. Those dogs are pets. They are supposed to be loved, pampered, and treated as one of the family.

People do not have much in the way of expectations of house dogs other than being house trained and not taking over the furniture.

A lot of people swear by them for training working dogs though. With a proper training regimen, a dog with good breeding and natural intelligence can be trained using a shock collar much quicker than a dog without one.

Does the dog wear the collar for the rest of it's life? Not usually. It is only used on the dog during a short period of it's life and usually only while training.

A man that has working dogs of whatever type tends to think of the animals as tools. He will take care of them, treat them humanely, spend time with them etc. A dog that does not learn, in that situation, is often treated like any other tool that does not work and is often disposed of.

I do not advocate using a shock collar like a remote control for a dog, but as a tool used in competent hands to achieve a goal. Any idiot can ruin a dog and a lot of them do. There are a lot of professionals out there that use the collars properly and turn out very good dogs.

[DubiousComforts]

The low setting wasn't really too awful.

WTF? I wouldn't want to be the dog in any household where the owner is testing out the bondage-wear for size.

What are you trying to train your dog to do?

[Legion2213]

No offence, but anybody who resorts to electric shocks to control a dog should really reconsider owning said dog. If he's doing something bad, get up and stop him if he doesn't respond to voice commands.

It just seems really wrong to me.

[bassman]

I just put antifreeze in my dog's bowl. He learned from that one.

[brer]

I would never use a shock collar on a pet.

That being said, what do you do with a blue heeler that won't work cattle properly and only on command?

It makes a horrible inside pet. No one else will take it as a cattle dog if it has proven to be untrainable. They are too aggressive to be around children. If kept on the farm, it will run cattle which is a capitol offense. The only thing that blue heeler is good for is an ass biter/guard dog if it cannot work cattle on command.

In the old days, a cattleman would grab a dog and work with it. If it learned, he kept it. If not, the dog would be disposed of. From what I understand, less than a third of the dogs ever made the cut.

A shock collar increases the odds of the dog becoming a good working dog and surviving.

Them things were never meant for your average idiot to use on the household dog. I'll defend their use in a few circumstances, but not for general home use.

[Debbieangel]

That's just it, even using that awful thing you are scarring a dog for life!
If you are wanting a well behaved dog you have to do the research and find out how to teach a dog. Otherwise, don't get a dog, plain and simple!!
Ginger listens really good without that dang shock collar. She has responded with a lot of TLC.848

[kortick]

The antifreeze thing does make things easier Bass, gotta
admit that.

and as far as dogs go, when u pick one u really have to
have in mind what type of dog you want so things go easier.

i mean its pretty much like when u wanna adopt a kid
they ask u what kind u are looking for,
Usually I answer either, 'one thats good in bed' or
'how much does it shit'

both questions apply and help narrow down whats right for you.

[brer]

That's just it, even using that awful thing you are scarring a dog for life!

Better scarred for life than not having a life. Besides, those dogs are not scarred for life in the hands of someone that knows how to use a shock collar properly.


If you are wanting a well behaved dog you have to do the research and find out how to teach a dog. Otherwise, don't get a dog, plain and simple!!

You do not get a working dog because you want one. You get a working dog because you need one.

Cattlemen tend to look at animals as resources. Anyone doing animal husbandry has to if they are going to make a profit.

You might as well ask "Why do you keep cows if all your going to do is sell them.". I've done far worse things to cattle than I would ever do to a dog.

Now, I don't keep cattle dogs, too much hassle. My dad did, but I don't.

In every herd, you'll see a few wild cows. The best thing you can do is get them to the sale barn if you can ever get them in a corral. If you can't get them corralled, that's when you hire some boys that make side money rounding up wayward cows. Yes, they generally use blue heelers in this part of the country. Guess what they use as a training aid.


Ginger listens really good without that dang shock collar. She has responded with a lot of TLC.

Ginger may listen good without a shock collar, but lets see her do something more impressive than staying off the couch. A trained cattle dog listens real good without a shock collar once it's been trained.

The level of training that is expected of a pet is nothing compared to what is expected of a working dog.

[Danny]

nobody here is talking about working animals, we are talking about domesticating home family pets there is a world of difference.

[brer]

nobody here is talking about working animals, we are talking about domesticating home family pets there is a world of difference.

I've said that at least twice and still am getting jumped on.

[SymphonicX]

its just a despicable process.

pure evil, and there's no justification for it.

[MikePizzoff]

Here's the simplest counter-question to ask:

Would you put the shock collar on your child if you were trying to teach them not to go near the cookie jar before dinner?

[Tricky]

My Labrador is a well trained gun dog, never needed to even consider a shock collar to make him a working dog. My friend is a bomb disposal expert in the army & has a labrador trained to work with her, also a working dog which is highly trained, but didnt need shocking or beating to get to that level...

[Publius]

Would you put the shock collar on your child if you were trying to teach them not to go near the cookie jar before dinner?

No, but I wouldn't feed my child from a bowl on the floor either. Or make him go to the bathroom outside in the snow. Dogs and children are different. We do, however, spank our son occasionally if he's not responding to other forms of discipline.

[kortick]

I dont like the abuse of animals or children.

But really, you need to teach them what is
right and what is wrong.
Actually its your responsiblity to do so.

Obviously the issue here is at what point are you
crossing the line between training/discipline and abuse.

And those collars really are not the horrible things
some of you think they are.

When u use the shock collar on the dog:
does it lovingly stroke and caress the animal? No.
does the animal lose contols of its bowels and shit
flies out everywhere and u can smell burning fur? No.

the collars when used properly do not hurt the dog.
its when ppl go overboard with it.
But really, some ppl they beat the shit out of thier dog,
they dont need a collar to be an abusive asshole.

[Publius]

Exactly, kortick. I can't join with those categorically condemning shock collars. Never used them myself, but the anecdotal evidence against them is probably attributable to people who didn't know what they were doing. One thing you do have to be careful about with a shock collar is that it reduces physical discipline to pushing a button, so you lose the direct feedback of the amount of force you're administering that you have when you give a swat with your hand or a rolled-up newspaper. It makes it easier to dissasociate yourself from what the dog is experiencing. It is important to keep that in mind.

[Mr. Clean]

No, but I wouldn't feed my child from a bowl on the floor either. Or make him go to the bathroom outside in the snow. Dogs and children are different. We do, however, spank our son occasionally if he's not responding to other forms of discipline.

Nice!


Exactly, kortick. I can't join with those categorically condemning shock collars. Never used them myself, but the anecdotal evidence against them is probably attributable to people who didn't know what they were doing. One thing you do have to be careful about with a shock collar is that it reduces physical discipline to pushing a button, so you lose the direct feedback of the amount of force you're administering that you have when you give a swat with your hand or a rolled-up newspaper. It makes it easier to dissasociate yourself from what the dog is experiencing. It is important to keep that in mind.

and this brings up how this post was created. I tested the device on myself before even using it on the dog.

[DubiousComforts]

I can't join with those categorically condemning shock collars. Never used them myself, but the anecdotal evidence against them is probably attributable to people who didn't know what they were doing.
Right, it simply must be that and not due to the overwhelming number of pet owners able to train their companion animals properly sans expensive electrical gadgets.


I just put antifreeze in my dog's bowl. He learned from that one.
Learned not to eat your food? Help me out with this one.



I tested the device on myself before even using it on the dog.

Once again, what it is you are trying to get Rover to do?

[Mr. Clean]

Learned not to eat your food? Help me out with this one.

Once again, what it is you are trying to get Rover to do?

Bassman's comment - Sarcaism. Antifreeze shuts down the kidneys. Nasty death. Asshole neighbors are known for using it to kill other people's pets. (Not trying to talk for you Bassman)

Sorry for not answering before. She was just really disobedient. She'd piss in the house, steal toys from the kids, destroy shoes, bite everyone (playingly - still hurt pretty bad).

When we first got her, we taught her alot of basic commands like sit, lay down, stay, drop it, go to your bed, go to the door to potty, ect. She picked it up quick and so I'm thinking "sweet, we got a super smart dog". Then after she got comfortable, it all turned around. We'd tell her to come here so we could put a leash on her and she'd come to us then run away and make sure we had to chase her to get her on the leash(probably playing I know but disobedient and dominating behavior for dogs). I'd firmly tell her no but she didn't give 2 shits. I don't believe in smacking them with a newspaper or your hand because the first dog I ever owned i tried that and she'd submit by pissing all over the floor and I'd just get even more pissed. So with this dog, I thought I'd try something different. I've literally only had to use the collar about 8 times on low and she has straightened up and listens again. It's just a matter of her learning her place in the pack. Let it be known that running from us wasn't her only problem to make me want to willingly give up money for a shocking device.

[Publius]

Right, it simply must be that and not due to the overwhelming number of pet owners able to train their companion animals properly sans expensive electrical gadgets.

The fact that most pet owners are able to train their pets without using them does not demonstrate that using them is abusive. I'm sure the overwhelming number of pet owners train their dog without wearing a tutu, does that mean wearing a tutu while training a dog is abusive? Well, it probably is, but that's beside the point. :p